Summer in the Valleys of Kyrgyzstan: 13 Photos from the Road

Heatstroke to freezing rain in 48 hours. The last six days have driven into my skull, with force and repetition, the importance of water in a water-scarce region.

Academics and politicians are fond of saying that water is Kyrgystan’s only natural resource. In reality, gold is the nation’s top export, but hydroelectricity and water-intensive crops take the other top spots, and the nation’s control over the watersheds of many of the region’s key rivers may be increasingly a point of geopolitical leverage in years to come.

While many areas of the world take fresh water for granted, the nations of Central Asia have faced repeated crises stemming from drought and unsustainable water use. The Aral Sea Crisis, which I hope to learn more about when I visit, is perhaps the most striking example of this, but many such conflicts over shared water resources have stoked tensions between nations and communities throughout the region.

Wanting to see regions of Kyrgyzstan that lay beyond the heavily populated northern valley, I cut south and then west. My route took me over two big fun climbs (~1500 m and ~1000m, respectively, with the highest point around 3300m) and through the country’s middle highlands.

An early morning climb up to the base of the first pass. I had climbed through the heat of the previous day, when it was in the high 90s (mid-30s C) and with just enough tailwind to render my gentle climb breezless. I ended up sprawled out in the shade on the side of the road, hazy and a little ill from the unrelenting heat. The next day I rose with the sun and spent these first few hours climbing through blessedly steep and shady gorges.It was hot again once the sun hit. I drank 5 liters of water that day, partially in compensation for the day before, and soaked my shirt in every glacier melt stream I came across.These spiny flowers graced the northern slopes of that range, making it hard to find a good place to camp.The descent down the southern side was short but sweet, and made all the better by the wonderfully salty horse-and-potato soup in the town at its end. I camped that night in a cool river valley, just before the road took off south towards the famous Pamir highway. (Every single other cyclist that I’ve met in these parts has been heading that way)A statue of a Kyrgyz hero below the national flag (possibly Manas or one of his sons? I didn’t see a title; possibly it should have been obvious)The entrance to the pass towards the historic city of Talas. Visible are two common modes of nomadic housing: a yurt to the left, and a caravan (green base) to its right.At the top of the second pass, thunder and freezing rain broke all around me. I descended slowly down the steeply-graded and potholed road, riding the brakes until my fingers were numb. That evening I got a hotel room to dry out, and had this view out the window as my reward.A reservoir along the Talas River, which flows west into Kazakhstan, full to the brim. Control over water resources has strained relations with neighboring countries in recent years, and especially so with Uzbekistan, which relies largely on unsustainably farmed cotton to feed its growing population.Water now flows at full capacity from the dam, as above-average temperatures drag snow melt down from the glacier-covered peaks. Kyrgyzstan relies on its glaciers and reservoirs for year-round water and electricity, and some people I talked to expressed concern that climate change is already threatening the nation’s ability to power itself and irrigate crops.The minute I hit the valley floor below the dam, I could feel heat rising from the baked earth. Locals say that temperatures have been 5-10 degrees above average, and that unpredictably rising temperatures are already affecting the timing of necessary yearly events in nomadic life, putting the lives and culture of many of the nation’s citizens at risk.Crossing back into arid, warm southern Kazakhstan, renewables suggest other paths for the future of energy. “Renewable” energy has become in many ways just another category in the minds of consumers and investors, but I think it’s important to remember what we have here: a source of power limited only by our ability to harness it, and not by its own scarcity nor its impingement on our ability to feed ourselves or quench our thirst.And here, a snail that must regularly live through stretches of many dry, 90-degree summer days. How does it do that? It must be so careful with what it has, to maintain itself and not just to beat out its competition.

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fqwatkins

Hi, I'm Forrest. I grew up in Eugene, OR and went to Whitman College, where I studied Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology and Spanish. I loved my time in school (and will probably love it again at some point), but right now it is time for something else. So I am embarking to realize my ever-expanding dream of biking around the world to document the effects of climate change and how everyday people are responding.
For more on the project, check out: http://360bybike.com/the-plan-cycling/
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3 thoughts on “Summer in the Valleys of Kyrgyzstan: 13 Photos from the Road”

Spectacular scenery as in your previous blog. Especially interesting: shot of water plume from spillway of dam with concrete bust of some bigshot above the upper structure. And, as before, combination of pix and captions is very effective. Your travel reports help flesh out our otherwise abstract reading of just colors and lines on a map.

That was an astonishing moment–I knew dams were a big part of Kyrgyz infrastructure and development, but hadn’t actually seen any since entering the country. I had expected a slight uphill coming out of that lake valley, but it turned out it was the head of a huge reservoir. Clearly, snow melt was near its peak and the dam was spilling out water as fast as it could just to keep things steady. I’m not sure the photo really communicates the scale there, but water looked to be shooting at least a hundred feet from the base of the dam into the air.